R.I. parents may have to take driver's ed, too + Poll

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — From the House floor on Wednesday, Rep. Joseph McNamara shared an amusing story familiar to anyone new to driving or new to teaching driving.

McNamara, a Warwick Democrat, said his first driving lesson took place in a supermarket parking lot where his older brother instructed him to parallel park between two shopping carts.

Teenage McNamara sat behind the wheel of an “old Volvo coupe” and let go of the clutch on the manual transmission car too quickly, despite his older brother’s warnings, he said.

The result?

“The car is bucking so much my brother almost goes through the front windshield, the rear seat falls out,” McNamara said, laughing. “He says, 'Stop it! That’s the end of your lesson!’”

Had McNamara’s brother gone through a driver’s education before the lesson — as proposed by a bill that passed the House Wednesday night — this may have been avoided, McNamara said.

The bill would require parents — or legal guardians or designees over 21 — to take a driver’s education course before their teenager is allowed on the road. The free course, which will be available online as well as in classrooms at the Community College of Rhode Island, aims to increase parental involvement in teenage driving.

“There is a correct developmental sequence for teaching your son or daughter to drive,” McNamara said.

Democratic House Majority Leader Joseph Shekarchi, D-Warwick, introduced the bill after AAA Northeast brought it to him, he said. Shekarchi said his passion for the legislation comes from statistics, rather than personal experience — as he does not have children.

In 2007, Massachusetts passed a junior operator license bill that included the parent class as a requirement. The state reported 16- and 17-year old drivers were involved in 6,400 crashes in 2013, compared with more than 12,000 in 2006, Lloyd Arnold, the senior vice president of public and government affairs at AAA Northeast, said.

Parents, guardians, or other designees would be refreshed on distracted driving laws, as well as restrictions for new drivers in the 90-minute course.

Right now the state requires young drivers to take 33 hours of traffic safety education at CCRI. Parents are supposed to take it from there — signing off on 50 hours of driving lessons with their child before he or she is issued a license.

Rep. Jared Nunes, D-Coventry, said he had a “philosophical problem” with the bill. Parents are capable of teaching their children — and if they’re not, they can seek out resources.

“It’s ... us reaching into people’s minds and trying to teach them every aspect of life,” he said. “It’s almost an insult to my constituents.”

But as Rep. Moira J. Walsh, D-Providence, pointed out, that logic operates on the basis that “every parent is a great parent.”

“That’s not an appropriate assumption,” she said. “There are plenty of parents who don’t feel like putting in the work ... it’s a sad reality but it is reality.”